Here is an absolutely crazy and stupid idea that will NEVER fly.....Oh wait a minute...

[Armstead]

All of the talk about how "radical" and unrealistic and unattainable liberal principals are brings this to mind.

Here's an idea. Let's shift the tax burden onto the middle and working class by lowering taxes on the wealthy and powerful, and put in a lot of loopholes for big corporations. Let's dismantle social programs and other government activities that actually benefit the population, while shifting enormous amounts of gthe budget into military spending on weapons that will never be used.

While we're at it, let's remove the regulations that protect people, so that big abusive corporations can do whatever the hell they want to the population. Let's also take away the power of things like the minimum wage to protect the basis of the middle class. And to cap it all off, let's wreck the competitive real economy, by removing the protections for true competition through anti-trust and similar regulations.

Well......If the Republicans had acted like Democrats back in the late 1970's,they would have dismissed that whole agenda. "Just using common sense, the public will never go for this because it is directly contrary to their own self interest, as well as their basic sense of common fairness and decency."

Instead, they actually pulled together behind a set of principles, fought for them and did n ot make excuses.

As a result we have had decades of what really is a ridiculous political philosophy. Why? because as bad as their beliefs are, the republicans at least had the strength of their conservative beliefs and didn't waffle or make perennial excuses.


Gee, just think what might happen of the Democratic Party actually stopped dismissing the principles of liberalism and stopped making excuses?

Especially because a liberal and progressive agenda DOES make sense.

[mdmc]

1. That would be a great Democratic Party my friend

I could really get behind a party of people like Bernie Sanders and Teddy Kennedy..

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Too bad one of them identifies as a Socialist

and the other was irreplaceable.

On edit: not a criticism of either man - just an observation that neither is in the actual Democratic party as it exists today.

[mdmc]

4. If I could get 60 socialist senators elected nationwide

We would no longer need the DLC. We could toss the corporate political parties to the trash and move this country into the fututre present.

[ShortnFiery]

5. *Democratic Socialist* ... but you already knew that, didn't you?

:eyes:

[loudsue]

3. If we had election reform in this country, we would likely have all of that.

But with the voting controlled by a MASSIVE ability to switch votes per software, and with the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine, there is no way to educate the uneducated, and fairly count the actual votes of the already educated. (Hell, there's even a huge push not to show the upcoming Howard Zinn documentary about a People's History of the U.S. by the right wing, and the media is seriously considering NOT showing it. ) This is the hump that must be overcome before ANY changes will be made in this country. Without an educated public and a way to count votes, nothing will change.

If we had media access and honest vote counting (and ... ok, let's dream... ) publicly funded elections (as opposed to corporate funded ) , then the government would once again be MADE to look after the welfare of the people, as opposed to the global money.